Chapter Six
“The targets are set up, the prizes arranged,” Radnor said. “The servants are putting out the punch bowls on the terrace, and the outdoor staff has been warned to stay away from the west park for the duration of the afternoon. What else might I do for you, Lady Glenys?”
He’d like to kiss her silly, which would probably get him escorted from the property on the business end of her fowling piece.
She put down her pen. “I’m forgetting something. I know I’m forgetting something.”
Lady Glenys was forgetting how to laugh, how to enjoy herself. This chamber in the south turret was her private parlor, despite looking like an estate office. She kept lists and ledgers, much like the duke did, and the furniture was a hodgepodge of castoffs that should have been relegated to the attics.
Her ladyship claimed the sofa, chairs, and chaise had sentimental value, but what each piece truly possessed were scratches, faded upholstery, and worn cushions.
“I told Abner not to let Griffin ramble on the hill today,” Radnor said. “One never knows where a stray arrow might land.”
Particularly an arrow shot by that master of mischief, Cupid.
Lady Glenys shifted from the escritoire to her mother’s rocking chair. “I’ve been neglecting my younger brother. Not well done of me. I had to learn about last night’s escapade from the undercook, who heard it from the boot boy, who got it from one of the stable lads, who visited with Abner while bringing in the yearlings after a night at grass.”
From long acquaintance, Radnor did not wait to be invited to sit. “Griffin came to no harm, my lady. Haverford will lecture him sternly, Biddy and Abner will keep a closer eye on him, and the incident will soon be forgotten.”
Lady Glenys closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the rocker. “Griffin never forgets anything. Never, never, never.”
“While you’re certain you’ve overlooked some vital detail. Shall I order you a pot of tea?”
She treated him to a hazel-eyed glower. “Don’t presume to cosset me.”
“Somebody must. This is your first house party, and keeping the whole business organized is more complicated than you realized.”
Her glower faded to a pensive frown. “I hadn’t grasped the cost. Haverford will kill me.”
“I’ll call him out if he’s the least bit ungentlemanly toward you, and His Grace makes a sizeable target. Send to Radnor for what you need, be it wine, extra stable hands, parlor maids, or kitchen help. I have more than I need, and you’d do the same for me.”
Haverford might kill Radnor outright—Code Duello be damned—for that presumption, but the staff at the castle would be run ragged over the next three weeks if something wasn’t done to augment their ranks.
“I like you better when you’re being obnoxiously witty, Cedric.”
“No, love. You dislike me better when I’m being obnoxiously witty.”
He’d almost made her smile.
“Order me a pot of tea and some biscuits on your way out, your lordship. I’m so busy being charming and gracious at meals, I’m not eating enough.”
Radnor would tear a strip from Haverford’s ducal consequence for leaving his sister to fret like this.
“The house party is off to a wonderful start, and the gods of weather are smiling on your archery tournament. As long as the sun shines and the breeze remains soft—”
“The weather,” she said, pushing to her feet. “I have nothing planned if the weather should turn fickle, which is all the weather does in Wales. Between the sea and mountains—what am I to do if it rains, Radnor? I know it will rain. It always rains here when nobody needs rain. I’d forgotten about the rain.”
She’d forgotten about him. Radnor caught up with her on her second circuit of the room.
“If it rains, then we will enjoy an impromptu musicale. I’m always good for a Welsh ballad or two, and the Windham sisters come from a musical family. Delphine and Hugh can play a duet at the pianoforte, and Haverford still has a guitar around here somewhere.”
Glenys studied him, and Radnor braced himself for the first compliment from her in years. A musicale was a brilliant suggestion, if he did say so himself.
“You look tired, Cedric. Have you been getting enough sleep?”
He’d been going very much short of bedsport—for years. “I confess I was up past my bedtime last night. I saw Griffin home, and then walked back to the castle by the lanes. The moon was lovely.” And I should have been sharing it with you.
“The moon was too bright. I couldn’t sleep.”
Radnor hadn’t been this close to Glenys in ages, and her lemon verbena perfume ambushed him. The urge to take her in his arms and kiss the daylights out of her was a physical yearning beyond the merely sexual.
Protectiveness and affection colored Radnor’s sentiments, as well as plain old possessiveness.
And yet, Glenys was tired. Behind the usual hauteur in the angle of her chin and the relentless dignity of her bearing, she was tired and overwhelmed.
“Take a nap,” he said. “I’ll explain to Haverford that you’re seeing to the last-minute preparations for the tournament, and he and I will manage at luncheon. I’ll warn him to tune his guitar, and I’ll have a word with the Windham sisters. Sir Nigel has a fine baritone, and I can accompany him if the tournament must be postponed due to weather.”
Glenys freed a fold of his cravat from his waistcoat, a single finger’s worth of familiarity that made Radnor’s heart beat erratically.
“I cannot take a nap, you gudgeon. I should have prepared two scavenger hunts. One for indoors, one for outdoors, and somebody must make copies of the lists of items to retrieve.”
A knock sounded on the door. Radnor answered it, and accepted the luncheon tray from a startled maid.
“I took the liberty,” he said, setting the tray on the sideboard. “I’ll also have a maid fetch you in ninety minutes, leaving you time for a short respite. There are sandwiches on this tray, and you will please partake of them. I’m happy to copy lists, shoot arrows, or flirt with Lady Pembroke, but Glenys, you must not try to do all of this by yourself.”
She crossed to the sideboard and peered at the tray. “I have dozens of servants to help me, Haverford is being the perfect host, and—these are ham and cheese sandwiches on rye bread. I adore rye bread, but you know that.” She sniffed the bread, much as Griffin might have, then took a bite. “Away with you, Cedric, and if you let me sleep through my own archery tournament, I will never forgive you.”
Just don’t forget me. “I have my orders. Your servant, my dear.”
Radnor kissed the hand that wasn’t holding a sandwich and withdrew, only to find the Duke of Haverford coming up the corridor.
“Is Glenys hiding in there?”
“She’s planning your wedding to Miss Windham. It only looks like she’s fretting over an archery tournament, a riding party, a musicale, two scavenger hunts, a country dance, a regiment of feuding housemaids, and your errant brother.”
Haverford regarded the door to Glenys’s sanctum sanctorum as if it were inscribed with the warning, Hic sunt dracones. A single dragoness, rather.
“Please spare Miss Windham your jests, Radnor. She has good cause to loathe all bachelors. Lady Glenys can make no such claim. Were you canoodling with my sister?”
How I wish. “If I had attempted the smallest gesture in the direction of canoodling with Lady Glenys in her present mood, you’d be measuring me for a shroud.”
Haverford retreated across the corridor, and took a wilting rose from a vase on the windowsill. He wrestled the window open, tossed the flower to the garden below, then closed the latch with more squeaking and scraping of old metal.
“I sought my sister out to suggest she steal a nap during luncheon. I can certainly preside over a midday meal without Glenys. I do fear this gathering constitutes biting off more than her ladyship can chew.”
“And you,” Radnor said, taking Haverford by the elbow before some guest caught His Grace impersonating a footman, “who can be a pontificating, humorless prig, are tempted to leave her hoist on her own petard, because the poor darling failed to adequately plan, schedule, and budget for this gathering.”
Haverford twisted free of his grasp. “Have I given offense, Cedric?”
Why was everybody determined to use familiar address today? “You have not. Lady Glenys’s foul humor is contagious. Let us prepare to be charming at the luncheon table while her ladyship puts the finishing touches on the afternoon’s diversion. You will ignore my ill-chosen remarks.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Like you, I intended merely to suggest. Shall we have a bout of fisticuffs here in the corridor or cry friends and shake hands?”
Haverford glanced up and down the corridor, then leaned closer. “A bout of fisticuffs might be just the thing. Griffin has developed a tendresse for Nan Pritchard.”
“God save us, and have mercy on your account at the tavern.” The lad fell violently in love, and tended to be constant in his attentions to the point of obsession.
“I’m convinced this house party has put the very stars out of alignment. Clouds have gathered to the south. Do you know if Glenys has anything planned for the afternoon in case of rain? I could always lead a tour of the damned library.”
“Glenys is ten steps ahead of you,” Radnor said. “If it rains, we’re to have an impromptu musicale. I’m to trot out my ballads, and you’re to play the guitar. Sir Nigel and the Windham sisters are on the program, and I suspect Hugh and Delphine might favor us with a duet.”
Haverford cast a look over his shoulder in the direction of Glenys’s turret. “Perhaps I’ve underestimated my sister.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time. She really does have all in hand.”
“Do you suppose she’d send me to the pillory if I asked you for the loan of a few stable hands or chamber maids? A spare footman or three wouldn’t go amiss either.”
“You may rely on my discretion and on my staff. Far better that they lend a hand here, than expect me to host one of these grand operas. A country house party is enough to drive even one of my singular fortitude barking mad.”
“My mother always said you had delicate nerves.”
Radnor was on the point of tripping his best friend when he realized that Haverford was smiling—truly, broadly smiling—and that his remark had been meant as a jest.
While Radnor had spoken in complete earnest.
* * *
“Miss Windham, excuse me.”
“Your Grace, good evening.”
Haverford was silhouetted in the doorway of this odd, round, parlor-cum-office, looking severely handsome in his evening attire. The sconces flickered with the draft from the corridor, sending shadows across the page Elizabeth had just sanded.
The walls of Lady Glenys’s tower chamber were not plastered smooth or covered with silk. Rough stone climbed to exposed timbers that marked this as an older part of the castle.
“If you’d please close the door, sir, I won’t have to re-light my candles.”
His Grace complied, and crossed the room to peer over Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Has Lady Glenys set you to copying her scavenger hunt lists?”
Cedar blended with the scents of candles and peat as Haverford’s shadow fell over the list Elizabeth had copied: Three acorns, one rosebud, a sprig of lavender, one white feather, a four-leaf clover…
My dignity. Since Haverford’s courtly gesture in the library—his kiss—Elizabeth had thought of little else. She would bet her personal copy of Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson that Haverford hadn’t kissed any other guests.
“I volunteered to help,” Elizabeth said. “I got turned around seeking my apartment after lunch and came upon her ladyship hard at work here when she ought to have been napping. She promised to have a lie down if I’d make six copies of each of her lists before tomorrow.”
Haverford settled into the rocking chair near the hearth. “You are kind, Miss Windham, but you dissemble. Here’s the truth: You plucked the lists from Lady Glenys over her protests, told her to seek her bed, and assured her you’d make the copies. Your sister is quite the markswoman.”
He would notice that. Elizabeth had noticed that Haverford had partnered Helen Windstruther, a shy young lady rumored to have only modest settlements.
“Charlotte was showing off, Your Grace. She has decided to torment Viscount Haldale.”
“She missed her target, if she was aiming for his lordship.”
In a sense, Charlotte had been aiming for Haldale, and she hadn’t missed. She had barely nocked her figurative arrow. Haldale had been dragged away by Delphine St. David, and had spent the rest of the afternoon admiring Charlotte from the vicinity of the punch bowl.
“I was sent to this house party to find a spouse, Your Grace. Charlotte accompanied me out of loyalty, not a desire to find a husband.”
Haverford rocked slowly, the chair creaking in counterpoint to the crackling of the fire. His legs were crossed at the knee—an informal pose—but then, the hour was late, and the day had been long. By firelight, Elizabeth could see the man he would become—features a bit craggy, visage tending to sternness. He’d age well and slowly, like his castle.
“If your sister prefers tormenting Haldale to winning my notice, I’ll be the last to complain of her choice of pastimes. Have you selected a book from my library yet?”
Elizabeth had sat amid a hoard of literary treasures, contemplating Haverford’s casual kiss until Aunt had dragooned her into serving on a pall mall team.
“Choosing a book from among thirty thousand tomes will take some consideration. While I’m delighting in your library, I suspect Charlotte might sample the charms of a discreet bachelor if the opportunity presents itself. She could view this party as her last chance for…adventure.”
Elizabeth had no interest in adventure, though another kiss from Haverford would be lovely.
The duke rose and began rummaging in the sideboard. “Care for a drink?”
A lady never partook of strong spirits, save for medicinal purposes. She also did not permit herself to linger in a compromising situation with a handsome duke.
At least, not more than twice a day. “A drink of what, Your Grace?”
“Let’s be a bit wicked, shall we? Glenys’s medicinal stores include madeira, brandy”—he opened a plain brown bottle, sniffed, and winced—“whiskey, if I’m not mistaken. My, my, my. Glenys has latent heathen tendencies. A pear cordial, a cherry cordial—my sister is quite the connoisseur.”
“Pear cordial sounds interesting.” As did a nightcap with the duke.
“I’ll have a nip of the same. Radnor predicts I’ll be a raving sot by the end of this house party. He’s promised to join me in that folly, and I suspect a tendresse for Lady Glenys might explain the source of his torment.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said, accepting a serving of pear cordial. “To a house party happily concluded for all.”
“A fine notion,” the duke replied, resuming his seat before the fire, a glass of amber liquid cradled in his palm. “Shall I warn Haldale off where Lady Charlotte’s concerned? On the roster of duties assigned to a conscientious host, preserving the innocence of maidens likely sits near the top.”
He made preserving the innocence of maidens sound as if it belonged on a list between meeting with the steward and inspecting the tenant cottages.
“Charlotte is a woman grown, sir. Who am I to meddle in her decisions?”
“You are one of the most forthright, sensible females it has been my pleasure to know. Why hesitate to save your sister from folly?”
Forthright and sensible. Elizabeth would rather kissable figured among His Grace’s compliments, but then, he was complimenting her with his time, his honesty, and his company late at night.
Haverford wasn’t the first man to kiss Elizabeth, though he was the first to share a pear cordial with her, the first to offer her a book of her choosing, the first to hold her hand under a moonlit summer sky.
The pear cordial was pleasant and surprisingly complicated. Such a drink too often became like so much jam in a glass—mostly sweet, a bit of fruit, a hint of spirits. Nothing remarkable. A touch of spice lurked in this version, an unexpected elegance.
“I have said nothing to Charlotte thus far because I’m not sure I should,” Elizabeth replied. “She typically takes no notice of bachelors, other than to skewer their presumptions.”
Haverford saluted with his cordial. “A fine use of the typical bachelor, and it begs the question: Is she merely amusing herself with Haldale, or setting him up to be skewered at dinner Tuesday next? I might like to see that.”
So would I.
His Grace was out of the chair and back at the sideboard, and this time, he produced a handkerchief, and took Lady Glenys’s collection of spirits from the cupboard bottle by bottle.
“What are you doing, sir?”
“Leaving my sister a warning,” he said, dusting each bottle in turn. “Lord Haldale fancies himself a buccaneer of the bedroom, if I may speak bluntly. Miss Charlotte might appreciate a word of caution too.”
Haldale’s rutting made him dashing, while Charlotte would be called fast if she shared two consecutive dances with the same man.
“What is your pleasure, Miss Windham?” the duke asked, replacing the bottles in the same arrangement he’d found them in. “Shall I say something to Haldale? Perhaps have a chat with Lady Pembroke?”
Haverford was trying to be helpful—drat him—and Elizabeth was trying to be agreeable, but pleasantries and platitudes eluded her.
“I will speak bluntly as well,” Elizabeth replied. “If Charlotte accepts what Haldale offers, she’ll not view the whole business of marriage as some great secret worth sacrificing her entire future for. Men approach their vows without the ignorance women are supposed to guard so carefully, and as a rule, the groom is far more deliberate about the business than the bride is. This is true, even when for many husbands, the vows are a formality they have no intention of honoring.”
Perhaps pear cordial made one loquacious—or pugnacious—for Elizabeth hadn’t expressed that thinking even to her sisters.
Haverford tucked his handkerchief away, folding it to hide streaks of dust. “Miss Windham, the subject of why a person marries, or does not marry, particularly in the case of a man who regards himself as the sole support of his family, is a more nuanced undertaking than you might grasp at first glance.”
Elizabeth knew that patient tone, that measured cadence. His Grace was warming up for a diatribe on a topic about which Elizabeth had been lectured past endurance. Though why were they discussing Charlotte, marriage, and perishing randy bachelors at all when they might have been discussing poetry or great literature?
Or kisses?
“Please do not explain marriage to me, Your Grace. I am blessed with two sisters and eight cousins who delight in regaling me with the joys of the wedded state. You have no comparable source of perspective.”
And those joys were beyond Elizabeth’s reach. Her sisters and cousins were radiant with marital glee, while Elizabeth had searched in vain for a bachelor who inspired even a small glow of contentment.
Nor, apparently, would she find such a man at Haverford Castle. She rose and passed the duke her unfinished drink.
“I ask you to excuse my impertinence, Your Grace. I am tired, and out of sorts. I will copy the rest of her ladyship’s lists in the morning.”
The duke stood between Elizabeth and the door, which would not serve when tears were so inconveniently threatening.
“You are angry with me, Miss Windham.”
Elizabeth was merely disappointed in Haverford. She was furious with a society that preferred a woman marry—marry anybody, no matter how brutish or self-absorbed—rather than live out her life in contented solitude. She was enraged with men who were willing to tolerate her literary interests because she was a means of establishing a connection with a ducal family.
She was angry with—and hurt by—that same family because they saw her only as a spinster-in-waiting.
And she was angry with herself, for being so easily intrigued with a simple kiss and the loan of a few books.
Elizabeth offered the duke a shallow curtsy. “I apologize for expressing myself so strongly, Your Grace. I know my views of marriage are unconventional. I’ll bid you good night, if you’d stand aside.”
“That, I cannot do.”